“California Prairie: Our Least Appreciated Major Ecosystem”
Guest Speaker: Glen Holstein
7:30 p.m. – Online Zoom Presentation preregister HERE
California prairie is our state’s least understood and protected widespread ecosystem. It has historically been mis-described and mis-understood. It is a major source of California’s botanical diversity, but too often it is dismissed as non-native annual grassland and treated as a priority for development and destruction. Its value as an important part of nature in our state needs to be appreciated so it can be adequately protected.
Glen Holstein (PhD Botany UC Davis) is an expert on California prairies and grasslands and active in preservation of Berryessa-Snow Mountain NM and Walker Ridge.
Glen is a graduate of Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, with a degree in biology, and transferred from there to botany graduate school at UC Davis. He took a few years off to help found the California Natural Diversity Data Base, participate in creation of the Consumnes, Cold Canyon, Nipomo Dunes, and Carrizo Plain reserves, and to write a chapter on riparian biogeography for Warner & Hendrix’s California Riparian Systems. Following that he finished his botany Ph.D. at Davis with a dissertation on climatic influences on plant physiognomy in world biomes. As a botanical consultant he saw much of California and its rare plants. He has been an active conservationist for many years, and retirement has enabled him to devote much more time to Tuleyome, a local conservation group, while also serving on several allied conservation boards. Among his projects have been helping to develop the Yolo Habitat Conservancy, helping to create Berryessa-Snow Mountain National Monument, conserving Woodland Regional Park Preserve, campaigning to protect Walker Ridge, and writing three articles for the 2011 Fremontia issue on California’s prairies and grasslands, which he co-edited.
